AHRMM Supports Healthcare Innovation through Research Grants

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CHICAGO – February 6, 2008 – The Board of Directors of the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM) has donated over $175,000 in research grants to three groups supported by collegiate institutions, the SCMetrix™ program of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University (ASU), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Efficient Healthcare Delivery Group (MEHD), and the University of Arkansas’ Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics (CIHL).

AHRMM contributed $75,000 to ASU to support further development and implementation of SCMetrix™ – a sophisticated online benchmarking tool to help hospitals compare their supply expense and supply chain processes to those of peer hospitals. AHRMM and the W.P. Carey School of Business began work on the joint project in 2007. In 2006, AHRMM granted ASU $100,000 to determine the study’s metrics, build the survey tool and the program’s Web site (www.scmetrix.org), and host several educational seminars to help hospitals gain a better understanding of SCMetrix™ and promote project participation. This year’s grant will support the tool’s continued development and refinement and will further assist with the marketing and educational efforts so that more hospitals will learn how to become part of SCMetrix™ and begin importing their data into the online system.

AHRMM also donated $50,000 to the MEHD Group, a healthcare supply chain initiative within the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics created to drive innovation in the field. The MEHD Group will use the AHRMM grant to create new insights, technologies, and business practices to improve healthcare delivery everywhere. In doing so, they will conduct research to identify the dynamics of the current healthcare supply chain, apply scenario-based planning methodologies to the healthcare supply chain, and recommend and develop innovative strategies, policies, and technologies. The MEHD Group has partnered with several companies to move this initiative forward including Caremark, Pfizer, Cardinal Health, and Cephalon.

CIHL, a collaboration of University of Arkansas researchers, healthcare providers, interested corporations, and government agencies seeking healthcare supply chain and logistic innovations, received $50,000 for its initiative “Identifying Opportunities for Cost and Quality Improvements in Healthcare Logistics.” CIHL was established through an initial investment of $1 million and primary funding commitments from strategic partners Wal-Mart, BlueCross BlueShield (of Arkansas, Alabama, and Illinois) and VHA to recover significant costs and achieve new efficiencies in the healthcare supply chain while improving safety, quality, and equity of patient care.

“The work of the AHRMM-ASU SCMetrix™ program, the MEHD Group, and the CIHL are all very important to the healthcare supply chain,” said AHRMM President Mary Ann Michalski. “As a leader in the field and a champion of these issues, AHRMM wanted to publicly support each of these prestigious academic institutions and their efforts. Through this research funding, AHRMM hopes that each group will be able accomplish their goals for 2008 and see continued success moving forward.”

For more information on SCMetrix™, please visit www.scmetrix.org. For more information on the work of the MEHD Group, please visit http://ctl.mit.edu. For more information on CIHL, please visit http://cihl.uark.edu.

About AHRMM
The Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management is the leading national association for executives in the healthcare resource and materials management profession. A professional membership group of the American Hospital Association, AHRMM serves more than 4,000 active members. Founded in 1962, AHRMM prepares its members to contribute to the field and advance the profession through networking, education, recognition, and advocacy. For more information, visit www.ahrmm.org.

About W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU
W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University is one of the largest business schools in the United States, with more than 190 faculty members, 1,400 graduate students, and more than 2,700 upper-division undergraduate students. The school is internationally recognized for its leadership in supply chain management and services marketing and is highly regarded for its faculty’s research productivity. The school’s seven research centers serve as a link between business communities and the areas of marketing, entrepreneurship, information technology and supply chain management. For more information, please visit wpcarey.asu.edu.

About the MIT Efficient Healthcare Delivery Group (MEHD)
The MIT Efficient Healthcare Delivery (MEHD) Group is a research consortium of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT-CTL). The group is focused on driving innovation in healthcare supply chain management; and its mission is to envision the future of the healthcare system and create new knowledge, new technologies, and new business practices that will help improve healthcare delivery everywhere. With MIT's considerable expertise in tackling large-scale complex systems, MIT-CTL plans to develop major breakthroughs in a domain that has traditionally been addressed in operationally-focused and fragmented ways. To learn more, visit ctl.mit.edu/mehd.

About the Universityof Arkansas’ Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics (CIHL)
The Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics (CIHL) is an industry-university partnership that leads a nationwide effort to identify and foster system-wide adoption of ground-breaking healthcare supply chain and logistic innovations. These cost-effective innovations can put the right materials in the hands of caregivers when and where they are needed. Research will target supply chain and material flow aspects of healthcare operations that can be addressed with better information and improved logistics systems and processes. The goal is to recover significant costs and achieve new efficiencies, while enhancing safety, quality, and equity of patient care. To learn more, visit http://cihl.uark.edu or call (479) 575-7798.